


The Primrose Path

by hutchabelle



Category: The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:39:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8004061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hutchabelle/pseuds/hutchabelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This chapter was written for d12drabbles, prompt 1--An Unexpected Letter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Primrose Path

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to xerxia and jennagill for being my sounding boards and offering advice. Your support was needed and is much appreciated.

 

Maybe I should have expected it, but how can anyone anticipate a letter from beyond the grave? Even more importantly, who could imagine I’d receive not one, but two in the months following the return to the shell of my home district? They arrived shortly after Peeta woke me from my stupor by planting primrose bushes in a row beside my house. He was a welcome reminder of days past; only one of the two letters was.

 

The war across Panem and in the Capitol destroyed more than lives. It wreaked havoc on the infrastructure of the nation. Dams had to be repaired, electricity restored to cities and rural areas alike, roads rebuilt, and sewer and water lines re-dug. Shelves in stores remained empty for months, and factories lay dormant as the dead were buried and debris hauled off to landfills. Places like the meadow in District 12 became a mass grave when cemeteries couldn’t hold all the deceased. Basic services like trash collection and the postal system took a long time to function efficiently. Rebuilding a broken nation proved difficult after decades of despotism, autocratic government, and oppression of the populace.

 

Admittedly, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything outside the four walls of my own home in Victor’s Village. There I stared into space hoping to escape the searing pain of losing my sister after sacrificing so much to keep her safe. Prim’s absence wasn’t my only loss. My long friendship with Gale disappeared overnight, and my mother’s choice to relocate in District 4 rather than returning home to me stung more than I wanted to admit. Peeta’s return helped some, but nothing could assuage my agony over my sister’s gruesome death as a human torch.

 

The first time the mail slot pinged, I didn’t even notice. I hadn’t shaken from my daze in weeks, and a metallic clang wasn’t going to be the impetus to bring me back to life. Only the sound of dirt being moved methodically by a shovel could do that—especially when it was accompanied by the only person who could even remotely understand why I was only a shell of my former self after the war’s end. Peeta, my dandelion in the spring, planted a path of primroses for me.

 

Peeta’s reappearance in District 12 woke me up, and with great effort and plenty of lost days, I found myself again. I returned to the woods. I hunted.  I made my peace in nature. I ignored the metallic tinkle that accompanied the sound of butterfly wings. It didn’t occur to me that such an infrequent annoyance could affect me after everything else I’d experienced since my sister’s name was reaped.

 

It was Sae who first suggested I sort through the growing pile of envelopes that littered the entryway. I’d avoided them as I entered and left the house, but the stack kept getting bigger as the days passed. Most were nothing—advertisements for new products, political fliers, and requests by Panem press to tell my story (as if it hadn’t been exposed enough during both my appearances in the Games and my time as Plutarch’s Mockingjay). A few letters from fellow citizens, mostly young girls, thanked me for being a role model who encouraged them to follow their consciences and to stand up for what they believe.

 

At the bottom of the stack lay a thin cream envelope that made my stomach clench. Something didn’t bode well when I saw it, and I should know by now that my gut has rarely misled me. I gagged as I broke the seal on the envelope and the faintest scent of sickeningly sweet roses wafted into the air. I should have stopped then, but I couldn’t fathom that he’d find a way to threaten me even after his demise.

 

My knees gave way from under me when I flipped the single page open and saw his name. The paper was obviously high quality, thick and as soft as cashmere, but the Capitol seal dripped blood red and gold ink down the page until I blinked and realized it was an optical illusion. My hands trembled, and I forced myself to focus on the neat black scrawl that covered the page. It was dated two days before the collapse of Snow’s administration.

 

> _My dear Miss Everdeen,_
> 
> _I fear my time is coming to an end, but that must not prohibit me from confessing my genuine regard for you. You have proven to be a worthy foe, one far greater than even I expected when you, a poor girl from an outlying district, volunteered for your younger sister. I dismissed you then, but I knew before your first Games started that I’d underestimated you. You outsmarted my head Gamemaker with the berries, and it was then that the revolution you started in the tribute parade and fed with your care for Rue and Peeta blossomed into a movement that no amount of repression could contain._
> 
> _I’m sure you believe I hate you, that my actions were nothing less than sadistic when I forced you back into the arena with the full expectation that the Mockingjay’s wings would be clipped once and for all. Yes, Miss Everdeen, I am quite positive you believe that, but it is far from true. You have been an admirable opponent, one that enriched the last days of my life._
> 
> _I have no doubt that my time in office and Panem as it has been for the past 75 years will end soon. I suspect my life will be snuffed out shortly after that. Surely you and your new president will contribute to my death. Perhaps Panem will prosper under a new system. I suspect it will be worse. Either way, you won’t ever be able to breathe easy, Miss Everdeen, but you outlasted me, and I always give credit where credit is due._
> 
> _President Coriolanus Snow_

 

Peeta found me later that evening when he came over after a visit to Haymitch. He told me later my eyes were glassy and my skin was cold to the touch. In the years to come, he admitted that I terrified him because he thought he’d lost me forever, that I’d moved beyond his touch and he’d been left alone in the rubble of District 12. His gentle touches and soothing words brought me back to him, but I trembled during the waking hours and thrashed and screamed alone in my bed at night—that is until the second letter slipped through the slot in my door and hit the floor with finality.

 

I didn’t want to touch it. I’d stopped checking the mail after I’d shredded Snow’s letter and incinerated it in the same fireplace where I’d trashed the roses he’d left me after the Capitol firebombed District 12. Peeta insisted I open it by arguing that nothing could possibly be worse that Snow’s final threat that I’d never feel safe, even after his death. In the end, Peeta’s capable fingers ran under the lip of the envelope and pulled the note free. He opened it and smiled his half-crooked, melancholy smile that emerged when he found something beautiful in the midst of tragedy. His blue gaze caught mine, and he nodded as he handed it to me. Then he held me as I broke down in his arms.

 

> _Dear Katniss,_
> 
> _I don’t know if I’ve ever told you how much I admire you, but I’m sitting here surrounded by other nurses and medics in District 13 watching coverage of the war, and I’m suddenly overcome with the need to do so. I hate that I’ve had to share you with so many other people over the past few years, but I can’t imagine anyone else who could have been a better symbol for the rebellion and the hope that life can be better than what it is right now._
> 
> _To me, you’ve always been my loving, strong-willed, determined older sister who kept it all together when anyone else would have fallen apart. The rest of Panem got a glimpse of the girl I’ve always known, but they won’t ever know you in the privacy of our home in the Seam or the way you and Gale worked together to save our families from starvation._
> 
> _I can’t wait for this all to be over, so we can go home and rebuild. I can’t wait for Peeta to recover and remember how much he’s always loved you. I can’t wait to finish my training and become a doctor so I can help heal Panem. Most of all, I can’t wait to spend time with you, my sister, who’s sacrificed so much for me and everyone else._
> 
> _I love you forever._
> 
> _Your sister,_
> 
> _Primrose_

 

I lost a lot of days after reading my sister’s final words. The letter wasn’t dated, but it must have been written within a few weeks of the war’s end. I don’t know who sent it or Snow’s note to me. I’m not sure how much mail sat in storage before Panem recovered enough to deliver what was there. I know nothing other than that I’m incredibly grateful Prim’s words found their way to me because they offered one last memory other than her scream as she was engulfed in flames.

 

A few weeks passed before Peeta encouraged me to emerge from my bedroom and rejoin the living. He coaxed me out with the suggestion that I’d want to see how much the primrose bushes had grown since he’d planted them the previous spring.

 

Did you know that in the time before the Dark Days if you led someone down the primrose path that represented encouragement to live an easy life that ends up destroying them? I found that in a book of quotations the Capitol had placed in the library long before I was a victor and assigned the house after my first Games.

 

My life wasn’t ever easy, but so many times it almost destroyed me. I’m grateful the strength, nourishment, and resilience of the dandelion won in the end. Peeta fought for me every bit as much as I battled for him through two Games, a hijacking, the loss of family and friends, and a war. We saved each other in the end. Primroses will always remind me of my sister, but nothing can erase that Peeta, my dandelion in the spring, planted them for me.


End file.
